24th February.
Our of several burning questions agitating Russia at the present moment, one of the most frequently asked is that we have selected above, "Who is to blame for the war and the present humiliation caused by it?" Perhaps it is fortunate for the Russian Government that its people are to the extent of some eighty per cent grossly illiterate. Were th the same general intelligence that is the national characteristic across the in Germany, it would have been inipossible by any means to quiet the clamour that would have arisen long before this time. But as things are in Czarland, one of the classes of society is too deeply interested in the continuance of the present regime to make any stir another is too deeply sunk in ignorance, poverty, and indifference to care much about what happens, and the third is numerically too small to overcome the deadly enmity of the first or effectually.stir the inertia the second. In a word, the educated classes of Russia apart from that great section of them which lives and moves and has its being in Ozardom, are too small to hope as yet. to cope with the organised forces of the autocracy, and too few to rouse to the sticking-point the downtrodden millions who suffer like dumb beasts because they seem to think that God and the Government created them so to do.
The outbursts which have recently alarmed the Russian Government are but the ebullient symptoms of a ferment that will eventually descend through the whole mass of the Russian proletariat and cause an upheaval to which the French Revolution was child's play, unless relief is speedily found for the ever-increasing pressure from withi "Who is to blame?" is at the moment mainly the angry outery of the educated few, the university professors, teachers, students, and professions generally. By and by it will be the roar of the multitude, We in England, have an answer to the query ready in an instant: It is no new one with us, and the reply has become almost stereotyped: "It is the fault of the system." But when passions are aroused such a begging of the question is unsatisfying. The pare sacrifice of a system is altogether too mild in its symbolism There must be im, perhaps tore than one Who is he to be in the present in. atance? Here in the Far East we have been prone to lay most of the blame for the conception, beginning, and end of the present fiasco on the much-acclaimed Viceroy of the Far East, Alexeieff. Popular condemnation has been his for months, forgetting perhaps that he was only authorised to carry out in the East the plan of action laid down for him at home. By whom? Probably the Grand Dukes, who, as "Trath" tells us, and as history has shown, are so dangerous a curse to Russia and to the world at large, On them, therefore, should be laid the burden of the initiative. That Alexeieff began in error, continued in error, and ended in error is now 80 evident that none need try to demonstrate it, but that he was instigated and egged on by the expansionist party at home is equally certain, and indeed the condemnation by those in Russia most likely to know. of these very men shows that Russians themselves are keen to award blame to those who deserve it.
With the Grand Dukes there stand arraigned the greater part of the bureaucrats whose lives depend upon the continuance of despotism. These hirelings of tyranny. know full well what is in store for them should democracy com" into power. The terror of their prototypes in Paris 80 vividly portrayed by Dickens in the "Tale of Two Cities," is theirs. Toa man they will fight for the support of the present 1égime until they see it is useless to fight any longer, and then, they will try to curry favour with whatever monetary dictator a successful upheaval may bring fort!
But there is a higher defendant than the bureaue: at, a higher even than the highest Grand Duke, who, has to answer for his share in the present difficulties of his country—the Czar. himself, the part author his own misfortunes. It has been the fashion to represent the Czar as at once weak and well-meaning. It, is dangerous combination at the best of times; itis fatal in a crisis. Alexeieff is said to defend himself from the accusation of being. unpred by declaring that when' things looked their worst he received telegram from St. Petersburg explicity assuring him hat there would be no war, and it is suggested that the Czar responsible for sending it,. This is one of those stories for whose final corroboration we may have to for years, Another of the same kind tells that in reply to a warning letter (or probably telegram) from the Kaiser before war had actually broken out, the Czar replied that steps had been taken to render Russian success certain. Each of these may be taken as a set-off against the other, but the grave fact remains that the Czar is of all men the one who should have been the best-informed respecting the real state of affairs in she Far East. papers are not censored, his library is unrestricted, his sources of infor-motion as wide as anybody's in the world, and yet he allowed his unprepared country to rush headlong to destruction in an. unjust quarrel. Now, as his people begin to call him to account, he leans once more on that broken reed " Divine Right!" He will permit no radical modification of. the system which has brought him and his country to the present pass, but muttering the old incantations tries to meet new difficulties. with worn-out weapons, Of all governments with which for his many sins unfortunate man has been cursed, by far the worst has been that which has most nearly approached to theocracy. The nearer divinity, the farther from God. We have seen it in our own history, Never was the divine right of Kings more fluently and piously insisted upon than under the rule of that priest-ridden pair of Charleses and their precious successor, James, Never was it more earnestly upheld than just before the close of the eighteenth century in France. Vox populi, vox dei, may be 'a concentrated essence of democratic belief needing at times a little water and perhaps a pinch of salt, but it is per motto ever conceived, and far closer to the trath than any im. we still hope to see belief in it more widespread in Russia. The more the Czar takes his people into his confidence the greater will be their
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.